Stafford Hospital Receives an A, Mary Washington a C in Fall 2024 Hospital Safety Ratings
Both are one-letter-grade improvements over the spring 2024 ratings.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Stafford Hospital has received an A and Mary Washington Hospital has received a C in the Leapfrog Group’s fall hospital safety grades, which were released today.
Both ratings are a one-letter-grade improvement over the spring 2024 ratings. Mary Washington and Stafford hospitals are nonprofit hospitals operated by Mary Washington Healthcare.
The other Fredericksburg-area hospital, Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, which is operated by the for-profit hospital system HCA, earned a C, the same as in the spring.
Mary Washington Healthcare issued a press release Friday morning about Stafford Hospital’s A rating.
“This achievement is a testament to the dedication of our staff and their commitment to providing exceptional care to our patients. We are proud to be recognized for our efforts in ensuring patient safety,” said Debra Marinari, associate vice president for nursing operations at MWHC, in the press release.
Leah Binder, president and CEO of the Leapfrog Group, said that achieving the A rating is “a significant accomplishment for Stafford Hospital.”
“It reflects enormous dedication to your patients and their families, and your whole community should be proud,” Binder said in the press release. “I extend my congratulations to Stafford Hospital, its leadership, clinicians, staff, and volunteers for their tireless efforts to put patients first.”
The C rating for Mary Washington Hospital reflects the facility’s worse-than-average performance in preventing certain post-surgical outcomes, such as sepsis infection, kidney injury, blood leakage, surgical wound splits, serious breathing problems, and death from serious treatable complications.
The hospital received a score of 215.85 for its rate of death from treatable serious complications, representing the number of patients that died for every 1,000 people who had serious post-surgical complications. The worst hospital’s score, according to Leapfrog, was 222.68. The best hospital’s score was 86.68 and the average hospital’s score was 168.34.
Mary Washington Hospital is also performing worse than average in terms of communication with patients about medication; communication between doctors, nurses, and patients; and the responsiveness of hospital staff. Leapfrog ratings in these areas are based on patient perspectives as reported to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center is performing worse than average in terms of preventing antibiotic-resistant MRSA infection, falls causing broken hips, handwashing, communication with patients, and staff responsiveness, according to its Leapfrog rating.
Leapfrog rated 71 Virginia hospitals this fall, and Stafford Hospital joins 41 others receiving A ratings. Fifteen hospitals earned Cs, and 14 earned Bs.
There were no D or F ratings.
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